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Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) occupied a unique place in the Indian federal structure as encoded in Article 370 of the Indian constitution. Incorporating Art. 370 in Indian Constitution reflected the recognition of the unique history and circumstances of J&K's accession to India. However, the article proved a roadblock in the Indian state's march to dictate and structure the politics of the state subservient to the perceived national interest, hence the unfailing attempts to gradually dilute it culminating in its total abrogation recently. The paper attempts at deconstructing the Indian state's preoccupation with weakening Art. 370 by arguing that it represented the project of extending homogenization with the ultimate objective of exercising maximum control in a security-sensitive border state. The paper contends that the efforts at homogenization proved counterproductive; it far from bringing stability has caused more political fragility in the state, thus feeding the very dynamics that it has been seeking to contain. In conclusion, the paper offers deepening federalization as the likely pacifier for the festering conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examined the market integration through price signaling in selected chickpea markets of Punjab using Johnson Cointegration technique. The average monthly wholesale prices of seven Chickpea markets Sargodha, Faisalabad, Lahore, Multan, Layyah, Bhakhar, and Rawalpindi were used for analysis for the period January, 2007-November, 2018. The empirical results show that six major chickpea markets were integrated with each other i.e., there exist law of one price. Sargodha market emerged as the source market for other six markets - may be called as target markets. The Granger-Casualty results show, there exists bidirectional causality among all markets except Sargodha and Multan market, where exist Uni-directional causality. The study also verified the dynamic of price transmission by using vector autoregressive (VAR) i.e., a 10 percent increase in the price shock to Sargodha market transmitted to the all other chickpea markets. The findings of the study suggested, chickpeas markets in Punjab are working efficiently and there is no need of direct state intervention in markets to improve the efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cotton crop is highly susceptible to insect and pest attack. This induces the reduction in the profit of the farmers, by declining the yield and increased production cost due to intensive use of insecticides. To cope this Bt cotton was rapidly adopted in Punjab, Pakistan i.e. 83 percent cotton area is under Bt cotton cultivation. The aim of study was to analyze factors that affect adoption of Bt cotton in district Toba Tek Singh, Pakistan. In this study, the primary data was collected from 150 cotton growers (adopter and non-adopter of Bt cotton) randomly through farmer survey. Logistic regression analysis results indicated that size of land holding, rented in land, and yield had significant positive impact in adoption of Bt cotton. while pesticide use and labor were found significant with negative sign. As the study findings indicated that yield had important implications for adoption of Bt cotton, therefore, there is need to carry out research to develop newer drought resistant and less input intensive Bt varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was conducted to explore the effects of various economic and demographic factors on consumer attitudes towards fresh milk. Data were collected from different areas of Faisalabad city by conducting a consumer survey using a well-designed questionnaire. For better reflection of the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents, the descriptive statistics were employed in the form of frequency distribution. Multiple regression model was employed to investigate the impact of various factors including milk price, family income, household education, number of children in the family and family size on milk consumption. Results indicated that around 92 percent of the respondents were male, and 8 percent were females; most of the respondents were educated as 30 percent were matriculated, 39 percent were graduate, and 23 percent held the master's degree. With respect to the level of income, 36 percent of the respondents had an income ranging from Rs. 15000 to Rs. 25000; whereas 26 percent had income greater than Rs. 55,000. Regression results indicated that milk price had a negative impact on milk demand, i.e., 1 percent increase in milk price reduces demand by 10 percent; 1 unit increase in the family size increase milk consumption by 0.08 percent; 1 unit increase in the education level of households increase the demand for milk by 0.06 percent. Further, respondent age, cost, usage, and nutrition-related attitudinal factor also showed significant impact on milk consumption levels. As the study findings indicate that mostly well-educated people prefer fresh milk, therefore, fresh milk providers should modify their targeting strategies from undifferentiated to differentiated which will enable them to provide a better service and earn a reasonable profit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was conducted at Institute of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan during the year 2012 to sort out technical as well as environmental efficiency related to sugarcane crop in district Faisalabad. Stochastic production frontier approach (SFA) was used to estimate determinants. Primary data (120 respondents) were collected by conducting surveys of four villages of district Faisalabad through simple random sampling. The results showed that sugarcane producers were 88.8 percent technically efficient. Environmental efficiency for use of nitrogenous fertilizer alone was estimated at 50.2 percent and for pesticide alone was estimated at 38 percent. Environmental efficiency for both nitrogenous fertilizer and pesticide environmental efficiency was estimated at 45 percent because of more efficient use of fertilizer. This study also depicted that medium and large famers were environmentally less efficient as compared to small farmers. The findings suggest that role of agricultural extension is a big question. There is a need to train the farmers in a manner to achieve higher and efficient yield. Program should be initiated to educate the farmers regarding the optimum quantity use of inputs and at proper timings. Farmers should be informed to use recommended level of pesticide and fertilizer for the production of sugarcane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study was conducted at Institute of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad during the year 2012 to determine the factors effecting the technical efficiency of milk production in Punjab, considering various types of dairy farms, Pakistan. Primary data were collected from two tehsils of district Layyah, and 120 respondents were selected randomly from different villages. Stochastic production frontier approach was applied to determine technical efficiency of dairy farms. The findings reveal that coefficients of green fodder fed (0.25), concentrate cost (0.28) and labour hours (0.21) per animal were positive and statistically significant. The present study also reveal that institution factor such as veterinary services (-0.135) availed and the infrastructure factors namely the road condition (-0.117) from farm to market had significant impact on the technical efficiency of dairy farmers. The mean technical efficiency was around 86 percent, indicating that farm productivity can be increased by 14 percent without changing the input mix. On the basis of types of dairy farms, the commercial farms were more efficient (93.7 percent) than market oriented (85.7 percent) and subsistence (81.9 percent) farms. It is suggested that veterinary facilities such as appointment of full time veterinary officers, diseases monitoring and reporting, diseases diagnosis, quality control of vaccines and veterinary drugs, training and awareness of stakeholders and up-gradation of existing legal framework should be strengthened. Rural infrastructure should be linked to the urban markets for making easy and smooth transfer of inputs and outputs from both sides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapeseed and Mustard are the third most important oilseed crops grown all over the world. These are also the most important oil producing crops in Pakistan grown in Rabi season. Pakistani farmers grow different varieties of Rapeseed and Mustard to meet domestic demand and commercial use. Technical efficiency is the effectiveness with which a given set of inputs is used to produce an output. The present study was conducted at the Institute of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistant during the year 2013-14. It measured the technical efficiency and sources of inefficiency in Rapeseed and Mustard production. District okara was selected as study area. A well structured questionnaire was constructed to collect the information from the farmers. Primary data (120 respondents) were collected and stochastic production frontier was used to measure the technical efficiency and sources of inefficiency. The results demonstrated that mean technical efficiency was 86.01 percent. Maximum sufficiency score was 99.74 and minimum score was 62.8. Average measure of 86.01 percent of technical efficiency implies that technical efficiency can be increased by 14 percent by improving their technical and allocative efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Present study was carried out in Social Sciences Research Institute PARC, AARI Campus, Faisalabad during 2012 with the objective to work out the total factor productivity growth of minor crops i.e. gram, millet, sorghum and rapeseed & mustard in Punjab, Pakistan. The Tornqvist Theil Index number approach was used, which is the most frequently used approach. The average annual growth rate of total factor productivity of minor crops remained 1.5 percent during the whole study period (1980-2012). During this period, the study showed that 54 percent growth in output was due to growth in total factor productivity while remaining 46 percent growth was due to the contribution of inputs to the output growth. This showed the large contribution of total factor productivity in the output growth. Total factor productivity growth was highest during 2001-10 when TFP growth rate was 1.9 percent. The contribution of TFP to output growth was 73 percent, while the remaining 27 percent was the contribution of inputs whereas. TFP growth was lowest during 1991-2000 when TFP growth remained 1.3 percent and contribution of productivity to output growth was 69 percent, while, the remaining 31 percent was the inputs contribution. So, the gap between output and input growth was bridged by the total factor productivity. Output growth of 2.6 percent was maximum during 2001-2010 while it remained minimum (2%) percent during 1991-2000. Input growth of 1.2 percent was maximum during 1981-90 while it remained minimum 0.6 percent during 2001-10. This shows the large proportional decline in use of inputs in comparison with substantial gain in production during the study period. The reason of this large yield gain is that TFP has become major factor contributing towards output growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study was conducted in the Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan during 2010 to analyze overtime productivity growth and changes in growth pattern in different agro-ecological zones of Punjab for the period 1981-2008. The study estimated input, output and total factor productivity (TFP) indices of three zones i.e. rice-wheat, cottonwheat and mixed cropping zones using Tornqvist-Theil approximation to Divisia index procedure. The results revealed the highest average annual growth rate of TFP (3.63%) in cotton-wheat zone. Mixed cropping zone registered TFP growth of 0.83 percent and rice-wheat zone 0.74 percent. Minimum TFP of rice-wheat zone may be due to increasing rate of soil degradation. The overall results of TFP growth rate for entire period in different cropping systems showed that it was highest in cotton-wheat zone followed by mixed cropping zone and rice-wheat zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pesticides applications generate negative externalities for health, environment and also add up to economic cost to cotton producers. Consequently, there is an urgent need of alternative methods of pest management for environment friendly cotton production systems. Integrated pest management (IPM) is a right method which can reduce or minimize the use of pesticides as well as can lessen the cost. The cross-sectional data was collected from district Jhang. A random sample of 99 farmers was selected to collect the data. The main factors which influence the adoption of IPM in cotton are age, education, farm size, farm labour, family size, progressive farmers and opinion leader farmers. The logistic regression was used to estimate the model. Three variables are significant at 5 percent level of significance and two variables are significant at 10 percent level of significance. The family size and opinion leader farmer (variables) are non-significant. The Hosmer Lemeshow test value was 0.316 (Chi-square) which was non-significant indicating that overall model was correctly specified. The estimated odds ratio for education, farm size, family labour, progressive farmer, and opinion leader farmer were 1.49, 1.07, 11.08, 12.26 and 4.27, respectively. All these factors had positive influence on the adoption of IPM technology by the magnitude of their respective odds ratio. However, the estimated odds ratio for family size was 0.48 and for age was 0.88 (both the estimated coefficient have negative signs), which suggests a negative influence on the adoption of IPM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study quantified the effect of major factors affecting the milk production in buffaloes. The important factors considered for the estimation of milk production included the value of dry fodder, the value of green fodder, the value of concentrate, number of lactations and the value of labour hours. A production function for milk was estimated by employing Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression. In the estimated model among all the relevant variables, green fodder, lactation number and labour hours were found to be the influential factors affecting milk production in this species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]